#mutual-aid

#mutual-aid

"This occupation has had an incalculable impact on every single person here and the repercussions will be ongoing for a long time. Besides the separation of families, the legal battles to repatriate them and the persecution and arrest of constitutional observers, there will be ongoing massive economic effects for families trying to make rent, immigrant-run businesses who were forced to close and to the city as a whole."

How did you build your village? We asked NPR's audience this question in our newsletter in January, inspired by Life Kit's interview with Priya Parker on how to create community. The key is to start imagining the community you might want to live in and then take steps to make that a reality, says Parker, a conflict resolution facilitator and the author of The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters. Many of our readers have done just that.

My partner, an immigrant from Brazil, shows love through acts of service. At first, I was confused. I had been raised to see romantic love, partner love, as centered on acts of adoration, big and intense actions designed to make me, the beloved, feel exceptional. My partner, who is romantic but not in that way, finds this focus on exceptional love confusing.

This isn't the first time Department of Homeland Security officials have claimed that Operation Metro Surge, its massive campaign in Minnesota, was slowing down or ending altogether. Homan teased a "drawdown" in late January, and a few days later President Donald Trump said he had ordered the withdrawal of 700 agents from the state. But an estimated 2,000 agents remained, and residents reported that raids continued.

The rent is due in Minneapolis, but with federal agents taking people away from their families for the crime of leaving the house, many are unable to go to work. Portland's Little Axe Records wants to help raise funds, which will be distributed through the Phillips Free Store, a mutual aid group that provides urgent rent relief to local residents.

Emergency crews in New Hampshire made a speedy rescue Thursday when they had to save nearly 60 people who were stuck on a malfunctioning ski lift. Fire officials from Lyme, Hanover, and Thetford, along with police officers from Lyme and Orford, responded to the Dartmouth Skiway in Lyme Center to help the Dartmouth Ski Patrol after a lift malfunctioned, the Lyme Fire Department said on Facebook. Responders from the three fire departments quickly began bringing the stranded skiers down from their chairs.

At the center of the physical space - a fomer Café Cerés location near Minnehaha Falls - stands a gold-tiled structural pillar that the owners want to turn into a literal pillar of the community. Customers snap Polaroids, tack them to the pillar and add handwritten notes about where they're from or their hopes for the future. The goal is to eventually cover the entire surface.

Black Trans Liberation Kitchen describes the work it carries out for the community as solidarity, not charity. On Christmas Eve (24 December) the organisation hosted its festive event at Judson Memorial Church next to Washington Square Park and served classic dishes like roast chicken, mashed potato and sweet potato pie. The church is is known for being highly inclusive, focusing on social justice, diversity, and affirming marginalised groups, particularly LGBTQ+ individuals.

The steady drizzle tested the limits of the string of tarps stretched across the backyard of a Maywood home. Beneath them, dozens of boxes, overflowing with clothes, shoes and toys, lay scattered across the pavement. Each gift was destined for one of more than 50 Southern California homes whose families have been caught in the growing immigration enforcement crackdown. This was not charity bestowed from afar, but mutual aid.

Erin Tobes and Audra Wunder are stay-at-home moms in the suburban Lincoln Square neighborhood of Chicago. It's a tight-knit community where everyone knows everyone, including the large, diverse population of immigrants and refugees who live there. When President Trump announced that he would send U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to Chicago, Tobes and Wunder met with the principal of their kids' school to find out what they could do to protect students and their families.

When resources were limited and someone needed help, neighbors knew-you didn't have to ask-and the community in its own way showed up to help with what they could. From helping to take the kids to school to showing up at the hospital when someone was sick, neighbors stepped up with kindness to share their limited but valuable resources. These experiences shaped my perspective about how community stands with community by sharing resources and the forces that mobilize them: relationships.

Millions of Americans who might have managed to get through the first ten months of this administration unscathed are now finding that they are not immune from this president's prioritization of power over people. Every day I hear from more friends whose healthcare premiums are skyrocketing to unaffordable heights. Federal workers have been without pay throughout the long government shutdown. Bay Area companies are announcing huge layoffs.

The unbordered reel The Arab Film Festival is back for its 29th year, holding steady after a year of budget stress and community rescue. What started as a scramble for support turned into a surprisingly full program, with films arriving from across the Arab world. In theaters from San Jose to Oakland, the lineup includes five Oscar submissions, three of them Palestinian. Festival organizers frame the work as a gesture toward visibility and belonging, inviting audiences to meet the region's filmmakers on their own terms. Screenings continue in Oakland through the weekend.

As a community organizer in New York City, Sharifa Khan spends a lot of time visiting food distribution hubs, community gardens, and local shelters. While speaking with community members, she often encounters the same issue: people want to get involved in volunteering, but they're not sure where to start. So, Khan decided to make a tool to address that-and it couldn't have come at a more important moment.

Co-owner Isa Steyer tells Eater that as soon as the team heard the news, they wanted to host a drive. She and the team decided to drop off their goods at the food pantry at John Wesley United Methodist Church weekly, because they had the capacity and also took in baby products, "which is great for our family-filled neighborhood," she writes over Instagram direct message.

Younger immigrant members of the time bank often offer assistance with household tasks, like carrying heavy things up the stairs. She recalled a story of members rallying to help a woman in her 50s who had to leave her home on short notice. They moved boxes, painted walls and stripped floors to make her fixer-upper livable. In return, Albright said, immigrants often request help with navigating challenging systems, like health care appointments.

In 2020, while writing her PhD dissertation on bringing land-restoration efforts in urban settings in Seattle under the management of Indigenous peoples, the Indigenous scientist Jessica Hernandez noticed that many of the articles and books she wanted to incorporate were not written by Indigenous people. Moreover, those that were were often not written in English. She wrote her first book, Fresh Banana Leaves (2022), as a way to help Indigenous peoples feel represented and to integrate Indigenous knowledge into scientific research.

Criminalization is the default framework people turn to in the United States to restore their sense of order, amid a crisis or emergency, so, when I hear someone suggest something wild, like calling the police on ICE, I understand where they're coming from. But as the Trump administration continues to consolidate power, we need to lose our illusions about the law as a moral instrument. We need more outlaws and less confusion about what the law protects and who it targets.

You say 'safety in numbers' like it's some kind of moral truth. But you walk past tents like they're scenery, treating unhoused people like a threat or worse, like trash.